Tag Archives: Outdoor learning

Swan and Museum Trip 15th May 2023

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What a day!  The pupils in P4/5  had an exciting day in  Lerwick today, learning about life in Shetland in the past.

On our way to set sail with The Swan, some pupils were unsure and feeling a bit nervous.  It wasn’t long before these feelings disappeared as we got busy on deck with the skipper and his 2 crew mates.  We got some hands on learning to see what it takes to sail a traditional vessel, the history of the Swan – and our maritime heritage.

It was good fun, working as a team to raise the sail and have a go at steering the boat!  Some future skippers at Dunrossness perhaps…?  One of the highlights was definitely exploring the bunks downstairs.  Most folk thought it would be quite a comfortable sleep in there, apart from when you would have to put in the extra plank of wood across the bunk opening, to keep you from falling out on a rough night out at sea!  On Wednesday, P6 will have a whole day on board The Swan, learning “the ropes” and working as  a team.  We know they’ll have great fun!

As well as our sailing experience, we spent time at the Shetland Museum, hopping through the ages and discovering the different people who have settled in Shetland over thousands of years.

We learned about crofting and fishing life in Shetland and the different jobs men and women were responsible for.  After our tour, we got a chance to do some “carding” with sheep’s fleece, to make it soft enough to then spin into yarn.  We can certainly see how hard life must’ve been in the past!

Time to get outdoors!

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We grabbed our chalk and headed outdoors last week to show what we had been learning about telling the time!

Some helpers drew clock shapes on the playground ready for our task.  Each person gave their partner a “time” to draw on the clock face.  These varied from o’clock/half past/quarter past,/quarter times to minutes past/to the hour.  We also wrote a digital time to match, sometimes including a 24 hour clock too!

Some pupils gave their partner challenges to find things like 27 minutes after a given time.  This took a bit more thinking!

Keep having fun showing time when you are out and about P4/5/6.  Perhaps you can make a clock on the beach next time!

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Thursday 16th September – Our Day

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What have we done today?  It’s been a busy day with lots going on!

First the class went to see Mrs Inkster for their Music class.  They have been working on, “Wonderland Tea Party Rhythms.”  This has involved them using different phrases to help them clap out the rhythms.  Then they saw how these rhythms looked in musical notation.

Grammar was waiting for them on their return!  Different groups were looking at different aspects of grammar… speech marks, homophones using dictionary work and proper adjectives.

We took advantage of the nice weather to go outside to measure larger areas in metres and centimetres.  We found keeping count of the whole metres the hardest part when measuring the length of the multi court!  Tomorrow, we will try using the trundle wheel some more and we’ll look at the different ways these measurements can be recorded.

The afternoon saw us quietly reading…always a relaxing, enjoyable time!  Then we wrote out our, “Diamond 9 Skills for Teamwork,”ideas.  We worked on these last week, deciding in small groups, which skills we thought were most important when working together.  See the photos below.

Lastly, some pupils went through to Mrs Inkster to let her hear their voices ahead of choir starting up again.  She was very impressed!

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Having fun together

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Over the past week we have been sharing thoughts on how to stay positive and how we can help other people feel good about themselves.  On Monday, everyone decided on some positive words to paint on to a rock and chose a design to accompany it.  These will be displayed outside the school next term for all to enjoy.

We have also been finding out even more interesting facts about Space and enjoyed looking at some of the PowerPoints that were created during Online Learning.

On Tuesday we visited the frog pond in the nature garden.  It was good fun trying to find the frogs hiding in the heather.  They were very camouflaged!

On Wednesday, we had lots of fun with our literacy Escape Room challenge.  It was very active!  Each team raced to find clues hidden outside and then brought them back indoors to solve as a team. Everyone did really well to take turns and involve every team member in the game.

Just before the next rain shower came, we squeezed in an Easter egg hunt and had fun re-hiding our eggs for someone else to find!

Phew!  What a busy time and still two more days to go! Well done everyone!

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Creative Class!

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Primary 5/6 spent another lovely day being creative on Wednesday!  We took a wander down to the beach in the sunshine  in search of some interesting natural items to use back in the classroom.  We had great fun “purlin in da ebb” to look for crabs, fish and other interesting living things.

Just look at these some of the fantastic pictures P5/6 made using the items they found!! More photos to be added so keep an eye out for them coming very soon!

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Playtime

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The wet and windy weather hasn’t stopped us from enjoying our new playtime equipment.  The skipping has been very popular and I think it is possibly time to dig out all of those old skipping rhymes for the children to try!

It has been lovely to see the class taking turns, co-operating, negotiating and problem solving in our outdoor play area.  Well done P5/6!

The class like to try and jump over the spinning rope without the rope touching them.
I wonder what’s on the menu today?

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Leaves all around us

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As part of our Biodiversity topic we have been classifying living things, including ourselves!  We made classfication keys about our class members and more recently looked at a range of different types of leaves from our nature garden and Mrs Henderson’s garden!  We sorted them into groups according to texture, size, scent, number of leaves, edges etc,  Then we tried to see if we could identify the tree they came from, just by their leaves.  Some were very obvious, but some were quite tricky to identify.

 

Biodiversity Bingo

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We had a super afternoon exploring our school grounds, searching for a variety of living things.  Everyone had a bingo board with a range of living things to find.  It was great fun taking a closer look for signs of life in the trees, under stones, pieces of wood and in the long grass.

After our bingo game, we had time for a quick game of hide and seek in the “forest”!  The trees are growing so well that it was very hard to find people!!

We ended our session with a visit to the nature garden and pond.  We patiently sat and waited to see if there were any frogs and we were not disappointed!  It was very exciting to see them hopping about in the heather.

Friday 20th March – Language Challenge!

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Hello!!

How are you all?  I hope this Post finds you all well and enjoying your home schooling.  It’s very different for all of us but we all just have to try our best to get used to the new situation that we find ourselves in.  Mrs A. Henderson has asked that, from time-to-time, we still use our Class Blog to set small challenges.  Well…are you up for it?  Here is a Language Challenge you could try and post up your work.

I found a lovely poem all about using the outdoors as a classroom and how you can learn from it.  Please read the poem below and then add your own verse in the comments to tell me how you’ve been using, or could use, outside as your classroom.

 

The Best Kind of Classroom – by Ian MacMillan

This is the best kind of classroom,

No walls, just sky and trees.

This is the best kind of classroom,

No radiators, just a gentle breeze.

 

This is the best kind of classroom,

It’s a journey through time and space.

From the smallest seed to the largest tree,

This is a forest and a learning place.

 

This is the best kind of classroom,

Where the seasons don’t happen in books.

Where learning is watching and thinking and talking,

Where everyone notices and everyone looks. 

 

See what you come up with P5/6!

Outdoor Maths

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We have started to explore a new area of Maths this week.  We braved the February weather to take our learning outside into the playground.  The markings on our play areas were perfect for helping us explore parallel and perpendicular lines.  We looked for right angles too.  It’s amazing how many you find when you actively go looking!